My weekly oil level check this morning revealed that my 2005 S-Type 3.0 was down about a quart. A quick peek underneath the car revealed several small, fresh oil stains on the driveway. So I broke out the Rhino Ramps, got the front end in the air, and removed the belly pan. The left side of the belly pan below where the oil filter is positioned was fairly oily. So was part of the oil filter itself. Oil had spread over the general area, including down onto the back of the oil pan where it adjoins the front of the ZF transmission housing....

I grabbed some old towels and spent about twenty minutes wiping up the entire area. Managed to get down into the cracks and crevices as best I could. After getting every component as dry as possible, I placed a clean section of cardboard on the driveway underneath the leaking area. I'll let the car stay in the air overnight, then check the cardboard in the morning for the exact location of the drip....

I think I'm lucky enough in this case to be dealing with just a leaking oil filter (while wiping it down I found a small crushed area on the upper side of the oil filter that may have gradually compromised its gasket seal), but I know from this forum that the factory oil pan gasket on these cars is prone to eventually springing a leak. For those of you who have had that happen, where exactly on the oil pan did your leak show up?

Thanks in advance to those folks who can assist....

 

Hey Jon,
Sounds like you have a plan to find it. I've had a run of bad luck with oil-filter leaks of late on both S-type and XJ. Unfortunately, I think I've only myself to blame. Having struggled mightily to remove one installed by a shop once - complete with a screwdriver jammed through it to use as T-Handle and everything....IIRC, that was on my Excursion. Anyway, I tend to come down on the weak-side of cinching them up, I guess. So I've been gradually putting them tighter and tighter with each oil change - I suspect one of these days I'll have trouble removing one and swing back to under-tightening them!

 

Hey Zane,

I hear you loud and clear, man. I tend to overtighten my oil filters and I think I probably crushed this one a bit when I cranked it down last October. I haven't had the belly pan off since mid-December, and I think this was a miniscule leak that took all this time before it finally showed up on the dipstick this morning. Oil was pooled up a bit in the belly pan, but I guess not enough to run out the back of it until sometime this past week. I hope I'm lucky and it is indeed the oil filter seal and NOT the dreaded oil pan gasket leak. If I remember correctly from Rick's saga in early 2009, it is a major undertaking to change that pan gasket (including raising the engine and unbolting and moving quite a few of the low-hanging components out of the way)....

I vividly remember installing an oil filter too loosely back in 1979 and having most of my fresh oil run all over the apartment complex parking lot overnight. Management wasn't happy about that and neither was I. I still think of that episode every time I do an oil & filter change and I tend to keep telling myself "Just one more quarter turn, Jon". This time, I think that approach bit me but it took nearly nine months to find out. At least I hope that's the case....

 

Jon aside from our PM discussion, I am having a hard time pulling up some old pictures that might help you out.


Its late and I have some diet Millers in me, I will find photos to share after church tomorrow my friend.

 

There is an additive that comes in a small bottle that can be added to the engine oil. It is an ultraviolet liquid that will "light up" with an ultraviolet, or black light, to spot where leaks
are coming from. It is harmless and can be left in the engine until next oil change.
Unfortunately, I don't know which stores carry it, but checking around should locate some.

 

Not a drop of oil on the cardboard underneath the vehicle this morning. So I double-checked around the oil pan again. Nothing. I checked around the valve cover gaskets as best I could with both a flashlight and feeling with my fingers. Nothing. So back underneath the car to shine my flashlight up into the the engine bay looking for oil drip trails. Nothing....

So I decided that the leak had to be coming from the oil filter. I drained the oil, then removed the filter. Lo and behold, the filter's gasket had gouges about a half-inch long on one side of it, probably from me cranking it down too tight against the metal base. I cleaned that base until it was spotless and discovered that its edges are sharp as a box cutter. They would cut right through the old cotton rag I used to wipe that area clean. No wonder the filter gasket had gouges. By cranking the filter down too tight, I spread the filter's gasket all the way to the edge of the metal base and those sharp edges cut into the gasket, creating a leak in the process. I believe this was confirmed when I discovered a build-up of oil and grime on the side of the filter directly below where the gouges in the gasket were. I could not see this build-up until the filter was removed....

So I wiped the area clean, carefully installed a new filter but did not crank it down as tightly as I usually do, added 7 quarts of fresh oil, left the belly pan off for now, backed the car down the ramps, and took it for a 15-mile test drive. Brought it home, backed it down the driveway, and placed my cardboard back underneath the general area. I'll take a look at the cardboard this evening and again in the morning. If I'm lucky, it will remain spotless and my leak issue will be resolved. We'll see....

 

Great news, Jon!

 

Ditto^^^^

 

The cardboard on my driveway underneath the engine remains spotless this morning. A very good sign indeed....

 

Update:

More than two weeks have passed now and I have not seen a drop of oil leakage since I replaced the oil filter. The dipstick level remains right where it should be at the max mark. I'm going to drive the front axle up onto my ramps and take a good look at the new oil filter, the oil pan gasket, the oil drain plug and the general area underneath the engine. If everything continues to be spotless, I'm going to declare victory and re-install the belly pan....

 

Done and done....

Mods, please mark this one as resolved....

 

I wanted to ask, what ramps are you using? You don't have any clearance issues with the ramps and your front fascia? Grats, by the way, on a job well done!

 

I use a pair of the 12,000-lb. capacity Rhino Ramps that I purchased on sale at Advance Auto Parts years ago, probably for about $35 or so. To eliminate any front fascia scraping, I also lay down a 2-foot section of 2-by-10 pressure-treated lumber in front of each ramp. So I drive up on the lumber and then continue up onto the ramps. No scraping issues whatsoever....

 

That's fantastic! Thanks for the info.


-Bob